The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 67
I went down to the Custom House to see Mr. Aldridge almost as soon as I reached New York, armed with Mr. Harding's card of introduction. The deputy, Mr. Stewart, took me in to Mr. Aldridge's office. With Mr. Aldridge was another man whom he introduced to me, "Colonel William Hayward, another friend of the President."
The letter which Mr. Harding had told me he would write to Mr. Aldridge had not as yet reached the latter's hands, and so I was obliged to explain my errand. Mr. Aldridge assured me he would do all in his power to assist me, and Col. Hayward volunteered to do the same. I thanked them both and tried to make it clear to Mr. Aldridge, after Col. Hayward had gone out, that I needed the position from the standpoint of salary, thinking by so doing I would entirely disarm him of any suspicion as to why President Harding had taken the pains to intercede for me.
I have often wished I had asked him frankly in the days that followed to see the letter which Mr. Harding actually wrote to him. I imagine the President wrote that I was the "daughter of an old friend," etc. But evidently what he did write was sufficiently strong. For two weeks there were a good many people down there working directly or indirectly to find a suitable position for the President's friend! I am afraid they all thought I wanted something much finer than I actually desired. Mr. Aldridge early turned the onus of the job upon his assistant, Mr. Stewart. Col. Hayward interviewed me with (what he said was) a view to creating a position in his own office for me in case I found nothing that pleased me.
As a matter of fact, I did not obtain work at all as a result of the efforts exerted in my behalf by the Custom House officials. I took the civil service examination at that time, but, having used my shorthand only spasmodically since I left the Steel Corporation, my speed was cut in half and I fell down on the stenographic examination, though I passed creditably in typing.
The position I finally obtained came entirely through my own personal contacts with employment bureaus, and was with an advertising man who employed me mornings and certain afternoons during the week. The rest of the time I spent getting out work for my journalistic course at Columbia.
I located at 314 West 72nd Street, in a room on the top floor of a studio apartment building. This structure has since been torn down and one of the newer type of tall apartment buildings substituted.
Mr. Harding had always encouraged me to write as much as possible, praising me for my letters which I wrote to him and which he said were the most graphic letters he had ever read. He used to tell me how he kept them under lock and key until he had absorbed every line of them, often taking them to the Senate Chamber, where he so often wrote to me, sitting apart from the other senators. "I am writing to you within hearing of epoch-making speeches," or "I am writing near the scene of important legislative events," he often said in his letters to me. And the knowledge that he had so often expressed what seemed to me was genuine pride in my writing encouraged me more than anything to strive for a certain goal that year at Columbia—that goal being a fair mark of excellence, of course.